Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

Chapter 2
From Guns to Missiles, 1945–1965
Rapid demobilization of the American military followed the
war’s end. As the magnificent US war machine disappeared, not
much was left in its place. Americans thought little of either war
or the military as they engaged in their peacetime pursuits,
thereby leaving the US armed forces with minimal tangible
strength. The two driving forces of national policy during this period
were tight budgets and trust in the atomic bomb. America
based its defense on confidence in overall American superiority
and distance, but most of all, on the bomb. Specifically, the
United States had the atomic bomb and a means to deliver it; the
Soviet Union had neither.
The offensive problem seemed relatively simple to American
Airmen, compared to what they had just faced in World War II.
Instead of vast formations of aircraft, now only one aircraft
(with the equivalent bomb load of thousands of World War II
bombers) needed to be employed. The penetration problem also
appeared easier; for, in contrast to dense German defenses
covering a target area of hundreds of miles, the Soviet Union
had relatively sparse defenses to cover thousands of miles. Another
factor favoring the offensive was that jet aircraft offered
performance superior to that of World War II aircraft. Probably
most important, instead of opposing a foe with essentially
equivalent technology and the potential to develop superior
technology, the United States now faced a nation considered
to be years behind its own development. The most serious
problems for the American Airmen appeared to be those of
range and basing.
American technological superiority delayed the Airmen’s defensive
concerns. Few Airmen thought the Soviets would get
nuclear weapons in short order, so certainly they would be slow
to master the problem of weapons delivery over intercontinental
distances. Consequently, American antiaircraft defenses shrank
along with the entire American military to the extent that by
late 1947, the US Army had only two battalions of AAA. Active
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